Resurrection Evidence

[Halbhh]

I think you might have misunderstood the story of Doubting Thomas. Thomas didn't take a leap of faith. With admirable reason he said he wouldn't believe that Jesus was alive again unless Jesus appeared to him; and Jesus appeared to him.
It's rather funny, then, to hear you say that you're a doubting Thomas kind of person who took a leap of faith.

Why won't Jesus appear to us? Because he's a character in a story. He can do amazing things - but only in stories. That's why you never see Jesus doing amazing things in real life; you only hear people tell you stories about him doing amazing things. That's how it always has been, and that's how it always will be. And faith is what prevents you from thinking critically about it and saying, "Funny, Jesus could appear to me; I hear that he does appear to others - but never in verifiable situations. Almost as if..."

There are things you just won't be able to understand until you stand in a different location. You have legs, though, continuing the metaphor, and can move yourself, if you so choose.

 

[BigV]

Don't conflate what I've said. In comparing the various conceptual matrices that reside within different religions with one another, you're comparing apples and oranges.

By contrast, in comparing the Christian Faith with the various activities of science and technology, I am comparing apples and enemas.

My point is, Atheists are consistent, but religious tend to only believe the miracles of their religions and ignore the miracles of others.

Lets be consistent. If we live in a world where resurrections and walking on water and miraculous healings are possible, then there is no reason to deny the same stories told by other religions. Christianity is not unique in making outlandish claims.

the substance of biblical epistemology is fairly different in nature from that of any epistemological framework we might choose to incorporate into our praxis when handling either science or technology.

The epistemology involved within the process of Christian faith is structurally different in form and partially in kind from that of human endeavors of measuring and building.

So, you admit to a double standard of measuring reality? You have one reality when it comes to human endeavors and another when it comes to religion?

I didn't imply there was; all three items you mention above involve technological feats rather than being cognitive acts in response to some semi-fathomable Transcendence.

Double standards?

I am doing all 6, not just 1 or 2.

I bet you still have health insurance. And why doesn't Jesus ever heal amputees? Why no healings of Down's syndrome, by making the Down's syndrome disappear?

 

[cvanwey]

You stated: "Sure, it's an extraordinary claim, but that doesn't define what extraordinary evidence is or explain why it's required."

In partial response to : "Since we both agree it is an extraordinary claim, then I gather you also agree that such a claim requires evidence, above and beyond, the ordinary."

I think we could be speaking past one another I already responded to this earlier. We could begin a several response exchange to lay the ground work for what IS considered 'extraordinary evidence'. However, in this case, it is not necessary. We both agree a man rising from the dead, after 3 days of being dead, warrants 'more evidence', 'extraordinary evidence', 'other'...

I again ask you... WHAT evidence has convinced [you] that a man did rise, after being dead for 3 days? I myself have presumably reviewed all the claims, only to find such claims lack in substantial evidence to support accordingly. But maybe you know something I don't know?

At this point, I want to know what evidence(s) specifically 'tipped the scales' in favor of it being 'true?' We can then explore accordingly.

 

[cvanwey]

Perhaps we can best just leave it at where I already directly answered your OP in the simple clear way many posts ago, and you responded that it was like Hebrews chapter 11.

That may be all we'd ever be able to agree on until you find out more. The only advice I have for you or anyone, and everyone, is that the main help for anyone is to listen to hear more that Jesus said.

The advice I would return to you, is to please understand that many people, including myself, attempted to 'listen' and 'hear' Jesus for a long time. Only to find 'no one' on the other side listening.

Again, if the human does not feel they've received conformation of contact, than ultimately, God failed in communication. Which means God purposefully does not want this person to know of their existence (or) maybe the ones whom claim contact are the ones mistaken.

Like I stated prior, God apparently has the ability to make His presence known to anyone and everyone, regardless of their 'mind set', 'preparation', 'ability to seek'. Case/point - Romans 14:11

I have repeatedly asked you, among others, to present the best piece of evidence(s) to support a resurrection claim. I have yet to receive, heck, really anything as of yet. I'm starting to wonder if you, and others, are aware that maybe such 'strong evidence' may not be so 'strong' after all? Because as I stated to you prior, there exists many 'truths' in life, for which I have NO CHOICE but to accept as reality, mentally prepared or not

 

[2PhiloVoid]

My point is, Atheists are consistent, but religious tend to only believe the miracles of their religions and ignore the miracles of others.

Yes, I ignore them for purposes of both Axiological and Metaphysical coherence, but not for purposes of Epistemological convenience. Religions ARE DIFFERENT, and to pretend like they're the same on the same philosophical level is tantamount to thinking that a Great White Shark isn't much different than a Poi Fish.

Lets be consistent. If we live in a world where resurrections and walking on water and miraculous healings are possible, then there is no reason to deny the same stories told by other religions. Christianity is not unique in making outlandish claims.

I have reasons to deny the same philosophical weight to other World Religions; and I will do so if and when any one religion seems to make less sense internally than another religion. On my part, like Pascal, I think that Christianity is not only more aesthetically and emotionally attractive, but more coherent metaphysically, even if not epistemologically.

So, you admit to a double standard of measuring reality? You have one reality when it comes to human endeavors and another when it comes to religion?

Yep, just like the Methodological Naturalist atheists that I know............................................!

Double standards?

OF COURSE it's a double standard, as it's supposed to be! And I'd go even further, adamantly so, in saying that YOU need to adopt the same set of 'double standards' if you want to show you're really up to snuff epistemologically and in your own handling of the epistemological contents that reside within the Bible on the whole.

YOU need to realize that when you're dealing with Biblical Epistemology, then you're not just dealing with mainstream epistemology. No, there is Biblical Epistemology, which isn't systematic by the way, and there is mainstream Epistemology as generally and pluralistically conceived, often systematically so, from within the field of Philosophical, and sometimes from within that of the various sciences. Each kind of epistemology isn't meant to be either conflated with, nor used upon, endeavors done from within the other fields.

It's probably high time for folks both Christian or Atheistic Skeptics to finally wake up to this fact and stop proffering and pandering to the idea that biblical faith should comport to the epistemological structures we'd typically use for modern, non-biblical, even technologically invested, human enterprise.

Needless to say, as far as this thread goes, this will in ways play into how any of us ultimately evaluates the Resurrection Narrative in Scripture. It will also affect the extent to which we find we can come to believe that supernatural account of a Risen Savior and, thereby, possibly even put our faith in Jesus Christ because of it.

 

[Tone]

if the human does not feel they've received conformation of contact, than ultimately, God failed in communication.

Is it that you've never felt you heard from God or did you second guess certain experiences you've had and maybe subjected them to other (than feeling) "epistemological frameworks" after the fact?

 

[cvanwey]

Is it that you've never felt you heard from God or did you second guess certain experiences you've had and maybe subjected them to other (than feeling) "epistemological frameworks" after the fact?

@Tone The answer is that it doesn't matter. According to the Bible., God has the ability to clearly convey His message to anyone.

Would you mind instead addressing the parts of this response you decidedly did not address?

(i.e.) 'present the best piece of evidence(s) to support a resurrection claim.'

Thank you

 

[muichimotsu]

I'd not believe at all unless all the confirmations came. I'm the 'doubting Thomas' type possibly. It required a lot of proof for me, but...I was willing to take the initial risk, the 'leap of faith' -- why not? -- and that was metaphorically for me akin to jumping off a cliff (on one level, but that was only in terms of the emotional risk side only) without quite seeing the other cliff I'd be able to land on, but trusting it could be there. In other words, it wasn't merely an intellectual exercise.

Proof is not what you got, you got what you personally confirmed as sufficient to believe, which is not remotely the same as something being independently verifiable. We don't begin with conclusions and try to find what fits them or even go with what seems the most compelling, those are intellectually lazy methodologies to arrive at truth

Jesus told Thomas that belief without seeing was more preferable, methinks you're missing the point of the story: you're not equal to Thomas in any sense because you're not seeing Jesus in the flesh (allegedly) according to the story.

You feeling like it was worth the leap of faith doesn't justify the conclusion you reached being true, especially if you're relying on mere plausibility or possibility rather than having more certainty in the vein of a chair supporting you (which is not comparable to faith in any reasonable sense)

 

[muichimotsu]

I think the whole issue of what makes for "epistemological warrant" is somewhat DIFFERENT for the Christian faith than it is when any us might want to undertake either scientific or technological activities.

So, I'm not sure why I should be badgered by others when I apply a different epistemological praxis to my faith than the one I'd apply if I was to build a rocket ship.

Besides, as far as I'm concerned, the whole process of justification in ANY activity is a difficult and imprecise one to handle. Yet, I hear both atheists and fellow Christians implying that I only think this because I'm somehow "uninformed" (read: ignorant). Frankly, I kind of get sick of it.

Then it sounds like you're engaging in special pleading to say that Christianity has to be approached differently, which is code for not applying critical thought remotely the same way, if at all

Your faith is sentimentality and fallacious inference, because you can't remotely falsify or verify the claims you make in regards to the supernatural supposedly affecting you. We can consistently test and see how a rocket works, faith doesn't work unless you're credulous enough to take it seriously

Absolute justification is not the same as justification with consistency in a falsifiable fashion. Christianity and other supernaturalist worldviews rely on confirmation bias to ignore anything that might contradict an initial conception or find loopholes to get around it (God doesn't answer prayers the way humans always expect it to, God's plan is mysterious, God's ways are above human conception, etc)

 

[muichimotsu]

Perhaps we can best just leave it at where I already directly answered your OP in the simple clear way many posts ago, and you responded that it was like Hebrews chapter 11.

That may be all we'd ever be able to agree on until you find out more. The only advice I have for you or anyone, and everyone, is that the main help for anyone is to listen to hear more that Jesus said.

You mean the guy that basically was advocating for the same kind of endtimes fringe insanity we see these days and would probably consider utterly out of touch with reality?

 

[muichimotsu]

No, in context of the previous discussion, I'm saying here is a way to begin to find out whether or not Jesus knew what he was talking about in general -- by first testing some of the easy to test instructions he gave, as a beginning way to find out if he knows what he is saying.

And if one succeeds, as it did so well for me (repeatedly in repeated tests), then to try another instruction.

And then another.

So, that one gains real experience of what He said, and whether it works.

That's only for someone objective and interested enough to take that path, which only some people might be. Not for everyone. Many only prefer to just keep their old ideas, and not learn new things, of course, and I'm not talking to those people in these kinds of posts.

Jesus' instructions being correct in their effects does not mean his claims about their causes are remotely true by association, pretty sure that's a hasty generalization fallacy of some form.

Success when it comes to the vague instructions Jesus gave seems like you can easily ignore the "failures" and only count the "hits" that confirm something you're believing based on supposed authority others attribute to Jesus, rather than the standards standing on their own merit or lack thereof with objective methodological constraints

 

[muichimotsu]

There are things you just won't be able to understand until you stand in a different location. You have legs, though, continuing the metaphor, and can move yourself, if you so choose.

Merely being willing to engage with something does not mean you should be so credulous to take incidental confirmations of some "reliability" as indications of the truth of a model where divine intervention is fundamentally unfalsifiable, since you can just claim demons did it instead if you don't think God really did it, but still believe God does things for the "real" believers

 

[muichimotsu]

Is it that you've never felt you heard from God or did you second guess certain experiences you've had and maybe subjected them to other (than feeling) "epistemological frameworks" after the fact?

And why is sentiment anything more than the most unreliable basis for truth? If it's just your feelings, then you can justify pretty much anything and no one would question you if they also use that same weak standard

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Then it sounds like you're engaging in special pleading to say that Christianity has to be approached differently, which is code for not applying critical thought remotely the same way, if at all

It's hardly special pleading if I'm correct, or rather, if the various philosophers, as well as the New Testament writers, whose teachings I've imbibed, are correct. And it seems to me that those like yourself who hold to an opposing position simply like to obfuscate the issues by asserting that I'm committing so-called "special pleading." But then, I know that people don't have the time or the convenience by which to vet my sources, so we'll just have to do a Mexican stand-off while everyone is shrugging their shoulders over who's right.

Your faith is sentimentality and fallacious inference, because you can't remotely falsify or verify the claims you make in regards to the supernatural supposedly affecting you. We can consistently test and see how a rocket works, faith doesn't work unless you're credulous enough to take it seriously

Faith also doesn't work--or rather, isn't supposed to work-- according to the wishful thinking that many a person has foisted upon the Scriptures, mainly through a lack of a more conscientious hermeneutical praxis.

Absolute justification is not the same as justification with consistency in a falsifiable fashion.

Perhaps so, but then again, the act of human justification of any kind isn't typically as coherent a process or as productive of indefeasible results as many folks like to make it all out to be ...

Christianity and other supernaturalist worldviews rely on confirmation bias to ignore anything that might contradict an initial conception or find loopholes to get around it (God doesn't answer prayers the way humans always expect it to, God's plan is mysterious, God's ways are above human conception, etc)

Confirmation bias could play into a person's interpretation of the bible and into his expectations, but this is a very long way from saying that Christians always are at fault for relying on confirmation bias or that skeptics like yourself are always free of their own biases when attempting to refute a religious ideology they have to have a distaste for.

And since we're at this game, please stop making insinuations to the effect that no Christians here could possibly be educated or have any academic acumen whatsoever. I know you've studied, but you need to be mutually respectful and at least acknowledge that you realize some of us who disagree with you might do so not because we sat outside on a cloudy Saturday afternoon staring up at the sky and dreaming up answers, but we too, like you, have read something of academic substance. We might be wrong, and you might be right, but if we're ignorant, it wouldn't be necessarily because we're not educated, as you seem to keep claiming we Christians ALL are.

 

[Tone]

faith doesn't work unless you're credulous enough to take it seriously

Or humble and needy enough to accept the gift:

Ephesians 2
" 8For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9not by works, so that no one can boast."

And why is sentiment anything more than the most unreliable basis for truth? If it's just your feelings, then you can justify pretty much anything and no one would question you if they also use that same weak standard

I am a multifaceted creature and, as I was created to do, I embrace truth most reliably when I do so as a whole person: intellect, emotions, will, existence, imagination, etc...I never said that I rely on feelings alone.


*Just as you should never rely on intellect alone.

 

[muichimotsu]

It's hardly special pleading if I'm correct, or rather, if the various philosophers, as well as the New Testament writers, whose teachings I've imbibed, are correct. And it seems to me that those like yourself who hold to an opposing position simply like to obfuscate the issues by asserting that I'm committing so-called "special pleading." But then, I know that people don't have the time or the convenience by which to vet my sources, so we'll just have to do a Mexican stand-off while everyone is shrugging their shoulders over who's right.



Faith also doesn't work--or rather, isn't supposed to work-- according to the wishful thinking that many a person has foisted upon the Scriptures, mainly through a lack of a more conscientious hermeneutical praxis.

Perhaps so, but then again, the act of human justification of any kind isn't typically as coherent a process or as productive of indefeasible results as many folks like to make it all out to be ...

Confirmation bias could play into a person's interpretation of the bible and into his expectations, but this is a very long way from saying that Christians always are at fault for relying on confirmation bias or that skeptics like yourself are always free of their own biases when attempting to refute a religious ideology they have to have a distaste for.

And since we're at this game, please stop making insinuations to the effect that no Christians here could possibly be educated or have any academic acumen whatsoever. I know you've studied, but you need to be mutually respectful and at least acknowledge that you realize some of us who disagree with you might do so not because we sat outside on a cloudy Saturday afternoon staring up at the sky and dreaming up answers, but we too, like you, have read something of academic substance. We might be wrong, and you might be right, but if we're ignorant, it wouldn't be necessarily because we're not educated, as you seem to keep claiming we Christians ALL are.

If you already are convinced of the truth in some way, then you're question begging that the sources are reliable because of your feelings that they are. How are you to demonstrate they are correct in any significant fashion that isn't incidental? People have vetted your so called sources and they're secondhand at best, to say nothing of having a vested interest in promulgating their story as true because they're already convinced that it is true

~~~~

Faith doesn't work, period, beyond people's subjective inferences of causality to events and whatever supernatural force they attribute as making them occur. Trust is based on reliability, faith is based on sentimentality

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Did you not read my qualification that absolute justification is the unrealistic part? Are you asserting that justification being uncertain in that it isn't absolute certain means it has to rely on unsubtantiated axioms in some sense? Your whole epistemology seems haphazard in regards to showing anything miraculous in the bible to be defensible as having actually happened

~~~~

Did I say I was free of bias? No, but acknowledging the bias and continuing to utilize it unquestioningly is not the same as considering the bias and looking at alternatives in an objective fashion without being unduly swayed by sentiments

~~~~

Point out where I've remotely insinuated a lack of education entails anything of a lack of reliability to one's claims. You can be educated and still be wrong, I've never said otherwise, even intelligent theologians and apologists can continue to use fallacious argumentation because they're already invested into the worldview's compelling nature and don't want to confront the potential cognitive dissonance that would come about. Intelligence and wisdom are fundamentally different, complementing each other, but favoring one over another in either direction can be dangerous

 

[muichimotsu]

Or humble and needy enough to accept the gift:

Ephesians 2
" 8For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9not by works, so that no one can boast."



I am a multifaceted being and, as I was created to do, I embrace truth most reliably when I do so as a whole person: intellect, emotions, will, existence, imagination, etc...I never said that I rely on feelings alone.

Not all gifts are worth taking, especially when they have strings attached to the degree Xianity does

Methinks you're still favoring your feelings over critically examining something, taking a step back from your feeling fulfilled in some sense and possibly realizing you might be mistaken

 

[Tone]

Not all gifts are worth taking, especially when they have strings attached to the degree Xianity does

Methinks you're still favoring your feelings over critically examining something, taking a step back from your feeling fulfilled in some sense and possibly realizing you might be mistaken

Well...if that's how you feel...

 

[Tone]

@Tone The answer is that it doesn't matter. According to the Bible., God has the ability to clearly convey His message to anyone.

Would you mind instead addressing the parts of this response you decidedly did not address?

(i.e.) 'present the best piece of evidence(s) to support a resurrection claim.'

Thank you

It matters to me....if you have had a personal encounter with Him in the past and maybe something occurred or you "learned" some things that subsequently made you question your experience.

So, again I present my testimony of a personal encounter with Him...meeting me emotionally, intellectually, existentially, imaginatively, mystically, and if there be any other aspect of the human being.


*I fear you have closed up other aspects of your existence where He may be speaking to you.

 

[muichimotsu]

Well...if that's how you feel...

Good old Christian passive aggression, never fails to make you seem like the victim and critics as the bad guy to someone who doesn't recognize the patterns of deflection and otherwise dodging responsibility

Maybe if you asked why I feel that way instead of just assuming, seemingly, that you understand even slightly about my background and reasoning for apostasizing